K-3 literacy and on-time graduation are two important areas where the Cleveland Metropolitan School District showed progress last year, according to the state report cards released Thursday by the Ohio Department of Education.
The district said its K-3 literacy rate grew by 4.2 percent, which was called 'significant' by CEO Eric Gordon. Though CMSD would have improved its rating to a D on the ODE's scale last year, the state raised its standards for 2016 on passing rates, resulting in CMSD's gain offering no help and the district's score was dropped to an F.
“Even though state tests change from year to year and make it difficult to make the apples-to-apples comparisons we can see on the more consistent NAEP (Nation’s Report Card) tests, we are encouraged by the gains we are seeing in grades K-3 and by our gains in the most stable measure of our growth--a record-high graduation rate,” said Gordon.
CMSD's on-time graduation rate grew from 52.1 percent to 66 percent. That was a 13.9 percent gain over four years.
“Continued growth in our graduation rate, along with gains in our K-3 literacy rate over last year reflects the growth and momentum evident in our NAEP scores that branded CMSD the ‘fastest growing district in the nation’ by the Executive Director of the Council of the Great City Schools,” Gordon said.
For 2015, the state added a new 'Prepared for Success' measure in relation to college readiness. Gordon said CMSD did not report on the new measure properly, so the results were not accurately represented on the district's 2015 report card.
“We own this error, as our systems were simply not set up to report to the state information about our students’ participation in Advanced Placement (AP) coursework and AP tests,” said Gordon. “Our college prep courses were not consistently titled across our large district to clearly differentiate between Honors and AP courses for this new measure on the State Report Card.”
For more information about Ohio's report cards from each district, visit reportcard.education.ohio.gov.
